[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
Most of the group attended the Saturday workshop on theme parks. If you didn't and would like to see the presentation and join the discussion, please ask Xin and Nallely to give you access to the workshop forum. You can write to them at: [email protected].

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
Most of the group attended the Saturday workshop on theme parks. If you didn't and would like to see the presentation and join the discussion, please ask Xin and Nallely to give you access to the workshop forum. You can write to them at: [email protected].

[clay dube]

Hi Folks - I'd love to attend this symposium as well. A previous engagement will keep me away, though. Here are links for the Huntington:

main: http://www.huntington.org/
Chinese garden: http://www.huntington.org/huntingtonlibrary.aspx?id=490

You may also be interested in this US-China Today article about the garden: http://www.uschina.usc.edu/article@usct?growing_to_new_proportions_chinese_gardens_in_the_u_s_11917.aspx

[clay dube]

Hi Everyone --
No one's said anything in the forum for a long time, but I thought I'd drop in and share this article about Hualien:
http://eng.taiwan.net.tw/m1.aspx?sNo=0017048

We spent much of our time climbing a river and paddling about a lake, but this article notes several interesting places within the city itself. Emphasis is on places built during the Japanese colonial period.

[clay dube]

Here is the second reading. Please post any comments or questions about this session.

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,

Please read Asia Pacific Arts.

Please read US-China Today: http://uschina.usc.edu

[clay dube]

here's an upload

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[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
Here are some of the films we might watch.

2002 film, Yamada Yoji director. Set half a century later than our seminar's 1800 framework. We follow a low-ranking samurai as he cares for his family, and is charged with taking on another samurai who has been cast out.

1983 film, Imamura Shohei director. This film is also set in the 19th century. Life is hard in this place at this time. One custom that's emerged is that people attaining the age of 70 are taken and left at Narayama (Mt. Nara).

1953 film (black and white), Mizoguchi Kenji director. Set during the warring age of the 16th century, the film looks at how the consequences of choices made by two rural men.

1950 film (black and white), Kurosawa Akira director. This crime mystery was so influential that "Rashomon-like" has entered the English lexicon. What really did happen at the Rasho gate?

Please do share your opinions if you've seen any of these films. Is there one you're particularly anxious to see?

[clay dube]

Some of the film night choices we're considering:
for 8/2
1998 film, Chen Kaige, director. Ying Zheng of the state of Qin is working to bring the six other states under his control. He hopes to use one of his concubines, Lady Zhao (Gong Li), in that effort. Things turn out a bit differently.

2002 (released in the US in 2004), Zhang Yimou, director. The Qin ruler has survived three assassination attempts and now suspects "Nameless" (Jet Li) of a plot to kill him.

2010, Hu Mei director. Chow Yun-fat plays the sage in this bio-pic.

Please weigh in if you've seen any of these films or if you have a strong preference for one of the three. The Emperor and the Assassin, is the longest of the three, 2.5 hours.

[clay dube]

First -- some procedural notes:
Post your draft lessons for review by July 5. Posting them earlier increases the time colleagues will have to comment upon them. Please create a new thread in the seminar forum for your lessons. Please title your thread: last name, name of lessons/unit.

Your lessons should be specific and detailed (e.g., don’t simply say, “read chapter 4 in the book,” give us full bibliographical information – author(s), title (ed #), place: publisher, year published and page numbers). If you’re drawing on web information, be sure to fully identify it as well. Here’s one standard model:
Author's Last Name, First Name Middle Initial. "Title of Content." Name of Web page. Name of organizational sponsor (not advertising sponsor), Date published or updated. Day Month Year of Access. Web address.
Please post your comments on your assigned lessons (and any others that interest you) by July 11. Final versions of your projects are due in our offices by July 15 (please note that this is a later date than originally listed in the seminar requirements handout). Send us hard copies of all materials used in the lessons (including photocopies of print (or web) reading assignments along with the lessons themselves. Please provide us with a digital copy of your lessons (it is easiest if you simply “burn” this to a cd). We will retain the digital copy for our records and will, after review, return the hard copy to you. Once your lessons have been approved, please post them to the lesson plan forum (create a new thread for your lesson): http://uschinaforum.usc.edu/forum56-lesson-plans.aspx.

A copy of the seminar requirements is attached.

In reviewing the lesson plans of others, please focus on these questions:
-- what skills are to be developed, what knowledge is to be acquired
-- can this lesson plan be executed (are the time and other expectations realistic, are the materials suitable, does it fit well with what the students will have already studied, with what they will next study)?
-- how might this lesson be improved (materials, methods)?

To post your review, please just click the "add reply" link. Please be sure that you review both of your assigned sets of lessons by July 11.

Thanks everyone!
edited by Clay Dube on 6/9/2011

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[clay dube]

This powerpoint is making the rounds, sometimes with and sometimes without the opening title slides, etc. I've been sent versions by over five people. Some of the photos are stunning. One of those images, though, has also come in for considerable discussion. A 2008 Wall Street Journal blog entry discussed it:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120363429707884255.html

***
"Earlier this week, Xinhua, China's state-run news agency, issued an unusual public apology for publishing a doctored photograph of Tibetan wildlife frolicking near a high-speed train. "The deception -- uncovered by Chinese Internet users who sniffed out a Photoshop scam in the award-winning picture -- has brought on a big debate about media ethics, China's troubled relationship with Tibet, and how pregnant antelope react to noise."
***
Here is a China Daily article about the photo: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-02/19/content_6464965.htm
The ppt has also stimulated considerable debate over the ecological impact on the plateau, on the economic consequences of opening the region to greater investment and tourism, and more. Many commentators have taken the presentation to task for being an uncritical endorsement of Chinese government development efforts in the region.

The ppt can be downloaded here: http://www.simsig.co.uk/index.php?option=com_agora&task=topic&id=2942&Itemid=54

[clay dube]

You can search back issues of Education about Asia at the EAA website. You can input key words and locate articles. Most articles are not available online (with luck that will change before too long), but you'll be able to quickly locate resources you may find helpful. If you take advantage of the wonderful offer mentioned above (see special opportunity), you can pick up a nearly complete hard copy set of the magazine. I have such a set and use the online database to speed locating articles.

Give it a try:
http://www.aasianst.org/eaa/EAA-TOC-Main.aspx

[clay dube]

Because the Association for Asian Studies is moving its offices, it is making an unprecedented offer to new or renewing subscribers of Education about Asia. For the cost of postage and handling, you can receive a nearly complete set of 15 years of back issues! Take advantage of this -- put these on your department resource shelf.

If you don't want to subscribe (but why not?), you can also order any particular back issue still in stock for just $2.

Seize the day! Get your order in:
http://www.aasianst.org/publications/Moving-Sale.htm

[clay dube]

Yes -- the life of a migrant worker is hard and mostly dull, though we see Qin enjoy the bright lights of the city. Why do they endure it? Mostly because opportunities back home are too few and because of our amazing human ability to imagine that sacrifice today will yield good things tomorrow.

Other films that I'd encourage you to see: China in the Red (a PBS Frontline documentary: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/red/, you can watch it online) and China Blue (screened as part of the PBS Independent Lens series, we were fortunate to have the director here in fall 2009: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/chinablue/).

[clay dube]

The Chinese practice of footbinding is one of those things that capture people's attention. This can lead to a distorted picture of the social position of women. Let's discuss it in the Asia in My Classroom forum. I will say more about it when I'm back with the group in May. Here I want to provide some additional resources:

Footbinding is one of the topics that every teacher needs to discuss when looking at the varying experiences of Chinese women. It emerged about a thousand years ago during the Song dynasty (宋朝，960-1279) and survived into the last century.

Not all women had their feet bound. Many non-Han ethnic groups such as the Hakka and Manchus did not bind their women's feet and it was much less common among ordinary people in the South than it was in the North, probably because women in the South usually joined in agricultural labor.

How are we to understand this custom and role men and women played in perpetuating it? How should we raise the topic with children? Is it enough to note that our own culture imposes standards of beauty that cause some to endure suffering, surgery, or psychological damage?

Below are some web resources on footbinding that you may find interesting.

California resident Beverly Jackson is a longtime collector of the shoes worn by Chinese women with bound feet. She traveled to China and interviewed women who had their feet bound and produced a lavishly illustrated volume Splendid Slippers. Her website offers short excerpts from the book, reviews of it, and -- of course -- a link to buy the volume. Combined with works by Howard Levy and Dorothy Ko, this is a good resource to draw upon in introducing the practice to students.

http://www.silcom.com/~bevjack/

Levy, Howard S. Chinese Footbinding: The History of a Curious Erotic Custom, Foreword by Arthur Waley. Introd. by Wolfram Eberhard. New York, W. Rawls, 1966.

Ko, Dorothy. Every Step a Lotus : Shoes for Bound Feet. Berkeley : University of California Press, 2001. Click here to see the UC Press webpage on the book. You can download and read chapter 2. It includes terrific images. Prof. Ko has also written "The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China," The Journal of Women's History 8.4.
http://iupjournals.org/jwh/jwh8-4.html

Feng Jicai, one of China's most popular writers, authored an interesting novel on the custom and its place in family and social life. Three Inch Golden Lotus. It was translated by David Wakefield and published by the University of Hawaii press. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0824816064/103-0017646-1395814?v=glance

Yue-qing Yang's recent film Footbinding: The Search for the Three-Inch Golden Lotus is available and includes interviews with Chinese about the custom. In the film, Dorothy Ko argues that footbinding is routinely misunderstood. http://www.movingimages.bc.ca/catalogue/Cultdiverse/footbinding.html

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